Edith Cavell, shot by Germans during WWI, celebrated 100 years on | World news | The Guardian First world war Edith Cavell, shot by Germans during WWI, celebrated 100 years on Centenary of death of British nurse executed for treason in 1915 marked as evidence emerges of possible links to British intelligence Edith Cavell was hailed as a Christian martyr and dubbed ‘our Joan of Arc’ by the British press. Photograph: UniversalImagesGroup/Getty Images Monday 12 October 2015 02.00 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 13 October 2015 14.12 EDT Close This article is 1 year old On 12 October 1915, British nurse Edith Cavell was shot at dawn by a German firing squad in Brussels for helping hundreds of allied soldiers escape from occupied Belgium. From the archive, 22 October 1915: The execution of Miss Cavell Read more A century later, she is being celebrated in exhibitions and concerts in Norwich Cathedral and in public buildings in the city, and in the nearby village of Swardeston where her father was vicar and where she grew up.

Cavell was hailed as a Christian martyr concerned only with saving the lives of allied soldiers. Her execution provoked outrage in Britain. Egged on by the government, she was dubbed “our Joan of Arc” by the press. Pinterest The wording on the monument to Edith Cavell near Trafalgar Square in London remains controversial. Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian “Everybody must feel disgusted at the barbarous actions of the German soldiery in murdering this great and glorious specimen of womanhood,” wrote Arthur Conan Doyle. A headline in the Manchester Guardian on 22 October 1915 read: “Merciless Execution of Nurse Cavell,” while an editorial dwelled on the “callousness” and “brutality” of the German occupiers in Belgium, and the way Cavell’s execution was carried out quickly and secretly. Pinterest Edith Cavell’s grave in France. Photograph: Tim Ockenden/PA Her death, at a time when the war was going badly for the allies, led to a huge increase in the number of volunteers signing up to join the British army. Cavell is remembered in Norwich above all as a pioneering nurse.

One of her lasting legacies is the Cavell Nurses’ Trust , which provides financial support for nurses in need. She had returned to Belgium, where she had set up the first secular training hospital for nurses, after the outbreak of war in 1914, saying: “At a time like this, I am needed more than ever”. Nick Miller, the chair of the Norfolk Cavell 2015 Partnership said: “To me she seems to embody the Good Samaritan. Edith risked her own life over nine months to help men who came to her with no way home.” Edith Cavell: nurse, martyr, and spy? | Vanessa Heggie Read more But other, more uncomfortable, sides to her story are emerging amid renewed controversy over her legacy, and even the wording on her statue outside St Martin-in-the-Fields near Trafalgar Square in London. Cavell’s biographer, Diana Souhami, records that following her execution, MI5 was anxious to suppress anything that would implicate Cavell in spying.

Stella Rimington, a former head of the intelligence agency, said recently after researching Belgian archives: “Her main objective was to get hidden allied soldiers back to Britain but, contrary to the common perception of her, we have uncovered clear evidence that her organisation was involved in sending back secret intelligence to the allies.” The intelligence included information about a German trench system, the location of munitions dumps and aircraft. Details were written in ink on strips of fabric and sewn into clothes, or hidden in shoes and boots. Yet it remained unclear, Rimington told BBC Radio 4’s programme, The Untold Story of Edith Cavell, last month, what Cavell precisely knew about the spying network. Richard Maguire of the University of East Anglia (UEA), goes further. He told the Guardian: “Cavell was not merely acting as a nurse and treating the wounded – she could have done this without helping those soldiers to then escape”. He added: “I think we now have to accept that the likelihood is that Cavell was working for British intelligence, or at the very least was happy for the network to be used for its purposes. How Edith Cavell made a confession | Letters Read more “Does this make Cavell a spy?

That depends upon your definition of the term. I would argue that the balance of evidence suggests that she was certainly an active and very successful agent for the British government’s war effort.” Cavell was found guilty of treason, specifically by providing “reinforcements” to Germany’s enemies, rather than of spying. She confessed to helping wounded allied troops escape, mainly to neutral Netherlands, but insisted she was acting out of purely humanitarian motives. Interestingly, the Red Cross took the view that Cavell was protected by the Geneva conventions only for her work for wounded soldiers (allied or German), not for helping people escape from Belgium. She was condemned at her trial, not as a nurse, but as someone committing a political act. Even the words on her London statue remain controversial. “King and Country” is engraved at its apex. After protests from the National Council of Women of Great Britain and Ireland in 1923 Labour’s prime minister, Ramsay MacDonald, agreed the statue should include what were recorded as Cavell’s final words on the eve of her execution. The inscription, “Patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness for anyone”, added near the base of the statue.

“So Edith Cavell’s statue became a muddle monument of opposing views”, Souhami says. Yet her final words to Stirling Gahan, the Anglican chaplain in Brussels, remain unclear. Those on the statue are taken from the typed version he sent to the American legation in Brussels, which passed them on to London. Gahan’s manuscript note, seen by Miller, records her saying: “Patriotism is not enough. It is not enough to love one’s own people, one must love all men and hate none ...” There is speculation among those concerned in the Cavell story that these words went too far and were too pacifist for the British government to accept. “She could not endorse the patriotisms of the warring parties – German, British or Belgian”, Miller emphasised. The Cavell Nurses’ Trust is to launch a national “moment of thanks” to today’s nurses. WWI Nurse Edith Cavell Executed, 100 Years Ago - History in the Headlines WWI Nurse Edith Cavell Executed, 100 Years Ago October 6, 2015 By Evan Andrews Color portrait of Cavell.

(Credit: Wellcome Library) Share this: WWI Nurse Edith Cavell Executed, 100 Years Ago Author WWI Nurse Edith Cavell Executed, 100 Years Ago URL Google At dawn on October 12, 1915, World War I nurse Edith Cavell was shot by a German firing squad on the outskirts of Brussels, Belgium. The 49-year-old Englishwoman had been condemned to death for helping run an underground network that spirited some 200 Allied soldiers out of German-occupied territory. Her execution caused an outrage both in Britain and abroad, and became a recurring motif in Allied propaganda for the rest of the war. Get the story of one of the most celebrated female heroes of World War I. When World War I erupted in August 1914, Edith Cavell was in her seventh year as the head matron of the Berkendael Medical Institute, a nurse training school in Brussels, Belgium. The grey-haired nurse was visiting family in England on the eve of Germany’s invasion of Belgium, but she immediately packed her bags and rushed back to her students. “At a time like this I am more needed than ever,” she told her worried mother.

Cavell’s school was converted into a Red Cross hospital, and as the wounded began pouring in from the front, she treated all soldiers regardless of nationality. “Each man is a father, husband or son,” she reminded her nurses. “The profession of nursing knows no frontiers.” A pre-war photo of Edith Cavell. (Credit: Imperial War Museum) Brussels fell to the Germans in late August, but the stern-faced Cavell ignored a call to return to England and remained at her post. That same month, the 150,000-strong British Expeditionary Force retreated from Belgium following the Battle of Mons, leaving scores of wounded Englishmen stranded behind enemy lines. Many were reduced to hiding out in the countryside to avoid being captured or shot as spies. Some even donned disguises or pretended to be deaf-mutes to cover up their nationality. Cavell knew the penalties for helping Allied troops could be severe—the Germans had papered Brussels with warning posters—but when a pair of refugee British soldiers showed up at Berkendael in November 1914, her conscience wouldn’t allow her to turn them away.

She took the two men in, nursed them back to health and sheltered them in her hospital until a guide was found to lead them out of occupied territory. The act of defiance marked the beginning of Cavell’s transformation from strait-laced nurse to resistance member. When word of her actions reached Prince Reginald de Croy, himself a resistance member and cousin of the Belgian king, she was enlisted into a clandestine group of Allied patriots. Her hospital soon became a vital way station on an underground network used to shepherd British, French and Belgian soldiers to the neutral Netherlands. Cavell carried out her role in secret, determined not to incriminate her fellow nurses. As the months passed, the stoic matron became adept in the cloak and dagger tactics needed to avoid detection by the German secret police. Most of the men she sheltered were signed in as fake patients and provided with phony identity cards. If the Germans arrived to conduct inspections of her hospital, she would usher the soldiers out the back door or cover them up in sickbeds. During one surprise search, Cavell hid a British private in a barrel and covered him with apples.

When the time came to hand her refugees over to their border guides, she would personally lead them to the drop-off point by pretending to take her dog on a walk through the city—all the while watching for spies in the reflections of shop windows. Her soldiers would trail behind at a safe distance, often disguised as beggars or even monks. An Anti-German propaganda poster that references Cavell. Despite Cavell’s precautions, her British nationality made her an obvious target for the Germans. By the summer of 1915, she began to notice suspicious men conducting surveillance on Berkendael, and searches by the secret police became more frequent. Even more troubling were the potential spies who started showing up at her door posing as Allied troops. Most were turned away for not knowing the password (“yorc”), yet unbeknownst to Cavell, a French collaborator got through and began funneling information to the Germans. It was clear that the enemy was closing in, but rather than flee the country, Cavell stayed put and continued aiding Allied soldiers as best she could. “We shall be punished in any case, whether we have done much or little,” she told her accomplices.

“So let us go ahead and save as many as possible of these unfortunate men.” She managed to assist several more refugees before August 5, when she was finally arrested and placed in solitary confinement in Brussels’ St. Gilles prison. The German secret police also rounded up dozens of other members of the escape organization, including many of Cavell’s closest allies. Nearly all of them were charged with “conducting soldiers to the enemy”—an offense that carried the death penalty under German martial law. British officers using a picture of Cavell to recruit soldiers. Cavell had told countless lies to protect her soldiers from being discovered, but when it came to her own fate she adopted a policy of unflinching honesty. During a group trial in October 1915, she admitted to her role in the resistance ring, and estimated that she had assisted as many as 200 soldiers in their escape from occupied Belgium. “My aim was not to help your enemy but to help those men who asked for my help to reach the frontier,” she said during her testimony. “Once across the frontier they were free.” The argument fell on deaf ears.

When the Germans issued their verdict, Cavell and four others were found guilty of aiding the Allies and sentenced to death. Diplomats from the neutral United States and Spain immediately scrambled to win her a stay of execution, to no avail. Brussels’ German governor ordered that Cavell and a fellow resistance member named Philippe Baucq would face the firing squad on the morning of October 12. Cavell spent the night before her execution writing goodbye letters in her cell. Shortly before 10 p.m. she was visited by the Reverend Stirling Gahan, who was astonished to find her looking “calm and resigned.” Cavell told Gahan that she hoped to be remembered as a nurse who had done her duty. “They have all been very kind to me here,” she said. “But this I would say, standing as I do in view of God and eternity: I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.” The following morning, Cavell and Baucq were driven to a rifle range and shot by a German firing squad. A chaplain who witnessed the execution later said the nurse “was brave and bright to the last.

She professed her Christian faith and that she was glad to die for her country. She died like a heroine.” Nurses marching in Cavell’s funeral procession in Britain. (Credit: A. R. Coster/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images) The Germans had intended for Cavell’s execution to deter others from aiding the enemy, but it proved to be a massive misstep. The British press condemned the killing as an act of barbarism and held Cavell up as a martyr to the Allied cause. “Let Cavell be the battle cry,” wrote one newspaper. Seizing on the public outrage, the British government issued reams of propaganda incorporating her story. Cavell’s name and picture were used to win other nations over to the Allied cause, sell war bonds and convince young men to enlist. By all accounts, the media blitz worked. Anti-German sentiment soared to new heights in the neutral United States, and in the eight weeks after Cavell’s death was made public, the British army experienced an astonishing 50 percent spike in new recruits. “Emperor Wilhelm would have done better to lose an entire army corps than to butcher Miss Cavell,” novelist Rider Haggard observed. Bust of Cavell in Norwich, England.

(Credit: RDImages/Epics/Getty Images) Tributes to Edith Cavell’s heroism continued after World War I came to a close. In 1919, her body was exhumed and returned to England. Before it was reburied at Norwich Cathedral, it made a brief stopover in London, where thousands attended a state funeral at Westminster Abbey. A statue of Cavell was later unveiled near Trafalgar Square in 1920, and dozens of landmarks have since been named after her including streets, hospitals, schools and even a mountain in Canada. The most recent tribute came earlier this year, when the U.K.’s Royal Mint struck a special five pound coin to honor the centennial of her death. Tags Edith Cavell BiographyBiography Online Edith Louisa Cavell (4 December 1865 – 12 October 1915) Short Biography Edith Cavell Edith Cavell was a nurse, humanitarian and spy. During the First World War, she helped allied servicemen escape German occupied Belgium; she was eventually captured and executed for treason. Her death by firing squad made her internationally known and she became an iconic symbol for the Allied cause.

In particular, she is remembered for her courage in facing execution with equanimity. This included her famous last words that ‘Patriotism is not enough.’ Edith Cavell was born in Swardeston, near Norwich. Her father was a priest in the Anglican church; this religious faith, she was brought up with, was to provide an important influence on her life. In 1900, she trained to be a nurse at the London hospital. In 1907, she was recruited to be the matron of a new nursing school in Brussels. This was a period of growth in the prestige and importance of nursing; a period which began with Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War. In 1910, Miss Cavell began one of the first nursing journals, L’infirmiere, this documented good nursing practises and basic standards. She became a teacher of nurses in different hospitals throughout Belgium and sought to improve standards of nursing. In the Nursing Mirror, Edith Cavell, writes: “The probationers wear blue dresses with white aprons and white collars.

The contrast which they present to the nuns, in their heavy stiff robes, and to the lay nurses, in their grimy apparel, is the contrast of the unhygienic past with the enlightened present.” Edith Cavell – First World War In 1914, the First World War broke out. At the time, Miss Cavell was in England, but she moved back to Belgium to her hospital which was later taken over by the Red Cross. As part of the German Schlieffen plan, the Germans invaded Belgium and from late 1914, Brussels was under a very strict German occupation of military rule. Many British soldiers had been lost behind in the withdrawal of the allied forces and were stuck in Brussels. Miss Cavell decided to aid the British servicemen, hiding them in the hospital and safe houses around Belgium. From these safe houses, some 200 British servicemen were able to escape to neutral Holland. At the same time, she continued to act as nurse and treated wounded soldiers from both the German and allied side. The occupying German army threatened strict punishments for anyone who was found to be ‘aiding and abetting the enemy’. Yet, despite the military rule, Miss Cavell continued to help.

“Nothing but physical impossibility, lack of space and money would make me close my doors to Allied refugees.” – Edith Cavell In mid 1915, nurse Edith Cavell came under suspicion for helping allied servicemen to escape; this was not helped by her outspoken views on her perceived injustice of the occupation. In August 1915, she was arrested and held in St Gilles prison. After her arrest, she did not try to defend herself, but only said in her defence that she felt compelled to help the people in need. After a short trial, the German military tribunal found her guilty of treason and sentenced her to execution. This surprised many observers as it seemed harsh given her honesty and fact she had saved many lives both Allied and German. Brand Whitlock, the US minister to Belgium and the Spanish Minister, ‘The Marquis de Villalobar’, made representations to the German High Command asking her sentence of death be commuted. In particular, the US minister warned the Germans that this execution of a nurse would damage Germany’s already bad reputation and would be seen as an injustice in the eyes of the world.

However, the protestations from the Spanish and American embassies were in vain, the German officer in charge – Count Harrach, dismissed the pleas saying ‘He would rather see Miss Cavell shot than have harm come to one of the humblest German soldiers, and his only regret was that they had not ‘three or four English old women to shoot.‘ Execution of Nurse Edith Cavell For two weeks prior to her execution, Miss Cavell, was kept in solitary confinement, except for a few brief visits. On the night before her execution, she was visited by the Reverend Stirling Gahan, an Anglican chaplain. He recorded her final conversation.

He records that Miss Cavell said: ‘Patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness to anyone.” She is also recorded as having said: “I have seen death so often that it is not strange or fearful to me.” On her last night, she wrote to her fellow nurses, saying: “I have told you that devotion will give you real happiness, and the thought that you have done, before God and yourselves, your whole duty and with a good heart will be your greatest support in the hard moments of life and in the face of death.” The following morning she was executed with other Belgians convicted on similar charges. There are conflicting reports of her execution. But, in one report, a German soldier is said to have refused to execute Miss Cavell and was shot by his commanding officer. However, this account is refuted by Pasteur Le Seur who was at the execution. In some misleading allied propaganda, Edith Cavell was reported to have fainted with fear and refused to wear a blindfold, after which she was shot in head by a German officer. This was found to be untrue.

Edith Cavell and War Propaganda Propaganda stamp After her execution, the fate of Edith Cavell was widely publicised in the British and American media. It was shown as more evidence of German brutality and injustice. Edith Cavell was portrayed as a heroic, and innocent figure who remained steadfast in her Christian faith and willingness to die for her country. It was hoped her example would encourage more men to enlist. The incident and disgust at her treatment by Germany, played an important role in shaping American public opinion and easing America’s entry into the war, later in 1917. Interestingly, during the war the French shot two German nurses helping German forces escape. When asked why they didn’t publicise this for its similarities to Edith Cavell’s execution, the German High Command replied, ‘Why complain? the French had a perfect right to shoot them.’ After the war her body was returned to Westminster abbey for a state burial. Her body was later buried in Norwich Cathedral. Citation : Pettinger, Tejvan. “Biography of Edith Cavell”, Oxford, , 30th Nov. 2010.

Related books Testimony of Pasteur Le Seur Rev Gahan’s account of final meeting with Edith Cavell Edith Cavell – Eight Portraits by Gordon Brown First World War.com - Who's Who - Edith Cavell What's New Who's Who - Edith Cavell Edith Cavell (1865-1915) was a British nurse serving in Belgium who was executed on a charge of assisting Allied prisoners to escape during World War One. Sponsored Links Born on 4 December 1865 in Norfolk, Cavell entered the nursing profession while aged 20. Moving to Belgium she was appointed matron of the Berkendael Medical Institute in Brussels in 1907. During her brief career in Belgium she nevertheless succeeded in modernising the standard of Belgian nursing. With war in 1914 and the subsequent German occupation of Belgium Cavell joined the Red Cross; the Berkendael Institute was converted into a hospital for wounded soldiers of all nationalities. Many of the captured Allied soldiers who were treated at Berkendael subsequently succeeded in escaping - with Cavell's active assistance - to neutral Holland.

Cavell was arrested on 5 August 1915 by local German authorities and charged with having personally aided in the escape of some 200 such soldiers. Kept in solitary confinement for nine weeks the Germans successfully extracted a confession from Cavell which formed the basis of her trial. She, along with a named Belgian accomplice Philippe Baucq, were duly pronounced guilty and sentenced to death by firing squad. The sentence was carried out on 12 October 1915 without reference to the German high command. Cavell's case received significant sympathetic worldwide press coverage, most notably in Britain and the then-neutral U.S. Such coverage served to harden current popular opinion regarding supposed routine German barbarity in occupied Belgium. Cavell, who is buried at Norwich Cathedral, is also commemorated in a statue near Trafalgar Square. Click the links below to read contemporary letters and reports on Cavell's sentence and death by Brand Whitlock ; Maitre G. de Leval ; Hugh Gibson ; Reverend H. Stirling Gahan ; and Arthur Zimmermann .

Sponsored Links Saturday, 22 August, 2009 Michael Duffy The Austro-Hungarian declaration of war was the first ever delivered by telegram. - Did you know? British nurse Edith Cavell executed - Oct 12, 1915 - HISTORY.com British nurse Edith Cavell executed Share this: British nurse Edith Cavell executed Author British nurse Edith Cavell executed URL Publisher A+E Networks On the morning of October 12, 1915, the 49-year-old British nurse Edith Cavell is executed by a German firing squad in Brussels, Belgium. Before World War I began in 1914, Cavell served for a number of years as the matron of a nurse’s training school in Brussels. After the city was captured and occupied by the Germans in the first month of war, Cavell chose to remain at her post, tending to German soldiers and Belgians alike. In August 1915, German authorities arrested her and accused her of helping British and French prisoners-of-war, as well as Belgians hoping to serve with the Allied armies, to escape Belgium for neutral Holland.

During her trial, Cavell admitted that she was guilty of the offenses with which she had been charged. She was sentenced to death. Though diplomats from the neutral governments of the United States and Spain fought to commute her sentence, their efforts were ultimately in vain. The night before her execution on October 12, 1915, Cavell confided in Reverend Horace Graham, a chaplain from the American Legation, that “They have all been very kind to me here. But this I would say, standing as I do in view of God and eternity: I realize that patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.” Cavell’s execution led to a rise in anti-German feeling in the United States as well as in Britain, where she was idealized as a heroic martyr to the cause and was honored with a statue in St. Martin’s Place, just off London’s Trafalagar Square.

“What Jeanne d’Arc has been for centuries to France,” wrote one Allied journalist, “that will Edith Cavell become to the future generations of Britons.” Related Videos Edith Cavell - Nurse and Martyr Edith Cavell - Nurse and Martyr Moya Peterson, RN, PhD, APRN, FNP-C Assistant Professor University of Kansas School of Nursing A discussion about nurses of World War I cannot start without the introduction of probably the most prominent nurse of the entire war - Edith Cavell. Edith Cavell was a British nurse born in 1865. She trained in a London hospital and in 1907 was appointed as matron of a newly established nursing school in Brussels, Belgium. By 1910 she had gained so much professional respect and had so advanced the nursing profession in Belgium that she began a nursing professional journal, L'infirmiere. In 1911 she was a training nurse for three hospitals, 24 schools, and 13 kindergartens. When war was declared on Germany by England in August of 1914, Cavell's training school for nurses in Brussels was taken over by the Red Cross.

In November the Germans had occupied Brussels and it came under German military law. Cavell began harboring and protecting British soldiers and smuggling them out of occupied Belgium into adjacent Holland, a neutral country. She sheltered wounded British and French soldiers as well as Belgian and French civilians of military age. She provided them with false papers and they were conducted by various guides to the houses of Cavell and others who sympathized with her. They were then furnished with money and guides and led to the Dutch border. This was a clear violation of the German military law which was now in effect in Belgium. German authorities became increasingly suspicious of Cavell. Adding to that suspicion was Cavell's outspoken opinions about the German occupation. Edith Cavell and her beloved dogs Cavell was arrested in August 5, 1915, just about one year after Britain had declared war on Germany, and was charged with harboring the enemy (Allied soldiers). She had been betrayed by a Frenchman who was later convicted by a French court as a collaborator. She was held in a prison for about 10 weeks.

When she was deposed by the German authorities she told them that she was responsible for harboring, in her home and transporting out of the country, some 60 British soldiers, 15 French soldiers, and about 100 French and Belgian citizens of military age. In her trial she stated that she had aided all of them to cross the border into Holland. She went further to state that she had heard from the soldiers thanking her when they had arrived safely in Britain. She signed a written statement confirming her involvement the day before her trial. She offered no defense. According to German law an offense such as this was punishable by death. It was also noted that this law also applied to foreigners. Ordinarily, the Geneva Convention protected medical personnel unless that protection was forfeited by a belligerent action. The Germans believed that Cavell's actions were belligerent and that she had forfeited her protection. The British government officials stated that they were powerless to assist Miss Cavell. The United States had not entered the war as of this time but they did apply some diplomatic pressure on Germany, stating in clear terms that if Germany executed Cavell their already sullied reputation would be furthered damaged.

The German civil governor was told that along with the sinking of the Lusitania the execution of Cavell would cause horror and disgust in the civilized countries of the world. The civil governor did recommend that Cavell be pardoned because of the humanitarian work she did and the lives that she saved. However, the military governor ordered her execution. The Germans were afraid that if they gave her lenience an upsurge of women participating in acts against them would occur because the women would not be fearful of retribution. A poster depicting the death of Edith Cavell (notice the German soldier in the background) The night before her execution it is said that she told a minister who had been allowed to provide the last Holy Communion to her that "Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness to anyone." These words are inscribed on a statue of Cavell in Trafalgar Square in central London.

Her final words, spoken to a German priest, were "Ask Father Gahan to tell my loved ones later on that my soul, as I believe, is safe and that I am glad to die for my country." On October 12, 1915, sixteen men formed two firing squads and executed Edith and another prisoner. She was buried in Belgium next to the prison and after the War her body was taken back to England. On May 19, 1919, in the Westminster Abbey, a memorial service was held for her and then she was laid to rest in Norwich, near her birthplace. An Edith Cavell memorial visited by nurses Edith's death played an important role in forming American opinion about Germany. The incident and disgust at her treatment eased America's entry into the conflict later, in 1917. A poster depicting Edith Cavell Edith Cavell was a serious, brave and patriotic woman who devoted her life to nursing and to her country. She was remembered as a brave woman and a faithful Christian. She stated that as a nurse she did not shrink from death.

She said that "I have seen death so often it is not strange, or fearful to me!" She wrote to her fellow nurses on that last night "I have told you that devotion will give you real happiness, and the thought that you have done, before God and yourselves, your whole duty and with a good heart will be your greatest support in the hard moments of life and in the face of death." The Church of England still recognizes October 12th as the day for commemoration of Edith Cavell, a patriot, a Christian, and a nurse of note. For further information on Edith Cavell her biography is Fatal Decision, Edith Cavell, WW1 Nurse by Terri Arthur. Other books about her include The Case of Edith Cavell- A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants by James M. Beck and Silent in an Evil Time: The Brave War of Edith Cavell by Jack Batten. There are numerous sites on the internet with valuable information as well. Images are supplied courtesy of The Wellcome Library in London.

Last modified: Oct 31, 2014 Heroic nurse Edith Cavell WAS spying on the Germans during WWI | Daily Mail Online Share this article Share 'She was known to use secret messages, and we know that key members of her network were in touch with Allied intelligence agencies. 'Her main objective was to get hidden Allied soldiers back to Britain but, contrary to the common perception of her, we have uncovered clear evidence that her organisation was involved in sending back secret intelligence to the Allies.' The documents also link Ms Cavell to self-confessed Secret Service Bureau agent Dr Tollemache Bull. A BBC programme to be broadcast shortly before the centenary of Ms Cavell's death suggests she was a spy who fed information back to the Allies even as she rescued British soldiers trapped behind enemy lines Ms Cavell's story began in the village of Swardeston in Norfolk, where her father was a vicar and where she grew up before moving to London to train as a nurse in 1896. As a young woman she wrote to a cousin: 'Some day, somehow, I am going to do something useful. I don't know what it will be. 'I only know that it will be something for people.

They are, most of them, so helpless, so hurt and so unhappy.' In 1907, she moved to Brussels to become the director of a training school for nurses but was caught behind enemy lines after the German invasion of Belgium in 1914. She formed a Red Cross hospital in Brussels and nursed German and Belgian wounded soldiers. Following the German occupation of the city, her institution was placed at the disposal of the invading army, and although she was given the chance to return to Britain, she chose to remain with her nurses. The school became part of a network of safe houses created to shelter Allied soldiers stranded behind enemy lines before smuggling them into the Netherlands. The soldiers were given fake identification and hidden until they could make it to the Dutch frontier. Less than a year after the invasion, in August 1915, Ms Cavell was betrayed by a German collaborator and was arrested for treason. Edith Cavell pictured with an unnamed child (left) and ex-MI5 chief Stella Rimington (right) She admitted during the court martial that she had personally harboured around 175 men in her home and helped them to escape. Her actions went directly against German military law.

Despite international pressure for mercy, she was sentenced to death and executed by a 16-man German firing squad on October 12, 1915. The 49-year-old faced death as she had faced life, and told the vicar who visited her on the eve of her execution: 'Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone. 'I have seen death so often that it is not strange or fearful to me. ' Her final words were: 'I am glad to die for my country.' Ms Cavell's remains were brought back to Britain after the war, and she was given a state funeral and a memorial service in Westminster Abbey on May 15 1919. In May this year a new coin celebrating Ms Cavell was struck by the Royal Mint as part of its five-year commemoration of the First World War. The coin depicts Ms Cavell tending to a wounded soldier. Inspired by the words of Laurence Binyon's poem, titled Edith Cavell, the coin's inscription reads: 'She faced them gentle and bold.' Secrets and Spies: The Untold story of Edith Cavell will be broadcast on Radio 4 on Wednesday.

Thousands turned out for the unveiling of a memorial dedicated to her in St Martins Place, Trafalgar Square Nurse Cavell was granted a state funeral. Her coffin, on a gun carriage, is pictured being taken along Victoria Street to Westminster Abbey escorted by men of the Coldstream Guards with arms reversed Nurse Cavell's grave at Norwich Cathedral - her body was brought back to Britain following her execution Read more: World War One: Edith Cavell and Charles Fryatt 'martyred' - BBC News BBC News World War One: Edith Cavell and Charles Fryatt 'martyred' By Greig Watson BBC News 24 February 2014 Close share panel Image copyright See pic (info here crashes template) Image caption The deaths of nurse Edith Cavell and merchant seaman Charles Fryatt helped galvanise public opinion World War One claimed the lives of millions, but the deaths of two people still had the power to provoke outrage. The executions of Edith Cavell and Charles Fryatt led them to become that most potent of weapons - the martyr. Their deaths moved King George V and Sherlock Holmes creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to issue fiery words of condemnation, and their funerals brought thousands on to the streets.

Miss Cavell was cast as the innocent. A parson's daughter, she had a frugal childhood in the rural Norfolk village of Swardeston. Unmarried, she became a governess and then a nurse before being invited to organise modern training for nurses in Belgium. World War One at Home Image copyright Harwich Society Dr Sam Willis: Camouflage and the U-boat fight 'Just incredible' When war broke out she was safe, visiting family in Norfolk. But she insisted on returning to Europe. Cavell expert Nick Miller said: "It's just incredible. Just as everyone else is trying to get out, with the German steamroller about to hit, she says 'I'm going back'. "She sees her responsibilities - her Christian calling perhaps - as the nursing team, the college she has helped set up, and the fact there are likely to be wounded on both sides - and she goes back. That tells you a lot about her." As well as treating wounds, Miss Cavell became part of an informal organisation that smuggled at least 200 allied soldiers into neutral Holland.

Image copyright St Mary's Swardeston collection Image caption Allied propaganda seized on lurid accounts of Edith Cavell's execution Mr Miller said: "She would have seen it as a necessary part of their care. If she just handed them over to the Germans they would have been thrown into a camp and left to fend for themselves. "But the bravery required is mind-blowing. To shelter these men, take them to pick-ups, all under the noses of the Germans, is gallantry of the first order." But in August 1915, Miss Cavell was betrayed and arrested. She openly admitted her role and was quickly tried for treason. While she was held in St Gilles prison near Brussels, the United States and Spain made appeals for clemency. Image copyright Royal norfolk regimental museum Image caption Edith Cavell's story was used as a recruitment tool 'Calm courage' But the British government was impotent. Sir Horace Rowland of the Foreign Office said: "I am afraid that it is likely to go hard with Miss Cavell. I am afraid we are powerless." She was shot early on the morning of 12 October, aged 49.

Mr Miller said: "She faced her death with calm courage, she did not criticise those who condemned her or those who failed to help." Charles Fryatt had already had a number of close shaves with German U-boats. After growing up in Harwich, Essex, he followed his father into the merchant navy. In March 1915, captaining the SS Brussels, he attempted to ram a prowling U boat, actions that won him national acclaim. But, on 25 June 1916, his ship was cornered by five gunboats and Captain Fryatt was imprisoned. Was Edith Cavell a spy? Former intelligence officer and author Michael Foot claimed older spies had told him Cavell had been working for the British Secret Intelligence Service but became distracted by helping soldiers escape. It was even alleged her actions prompted a long-running rivalry between the part of the secret service devoted to escape and that to intelligence gathering. Cavell expert Nick Miller said: "I've never seen any evidence for this. The Germans shot her for treason, not espionage." He was tried in Bruges on charges of being franc-tireur - a civilian engaged in hostile military activity.

Captain Fryatt had earlier told his captors he did his duty to protect his crew but, according to press reports, was not allowed to speak at his trial. The hearing, sentence and firing squad all took place on the same day, 27 July. His great-granddaughter, Louise Gill, said: "It caused huge outrage at the time because he was a non-combatant, he was just protecting his ship and the people on it. "When his funeral was held in Harwich, schoolchildren were given the day off and the streets were lined with people." Among the lasting tributes, the local hospital was named after him. Ms Gill added: "I am immensely proud his name is still to be seen throughout Harwich and when they teach history in the local schools, Captain Fryatt is still part of it.

Image copyright Harwich Society Image caption The public reaction to Charles Fryatt's death echoed that of Miss Cavell eight months earlier - it led to the likes of a hospital opening in his name, in Harwich "The Fryatt Hospital was recently going to be closed but it was saved and the name was saved and I think that saving the name is important to Harwich as well as the family." In both cases, the Germans had intended to show defiance would not be tolerated. In both cases they acted in accordance with their military code and international law. However despite that, in both cases they failed to consider the propaganda battle. 'Violated civilisation' Newspapers across the world raged at the actions of the German army. Headlines were fat with words like "murder" and "atrocity". Stephen Badsey, Professor of Conflict Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, explained: "Both were guilty of breaching military law and once the Germany military had determined they had a right to execute them they were going to go ahead and do it, without thinking through the wider impact. Image copyright IWM Image caption The cases fed a sense of personal vengeance in the war "Germany also took the fundamental view that wars were fought by uniformed soldiers.

"A civilian caught engaging in anything that could be described as a military activity had, from their point of view, violated one of the basic tenets of civilisation. "The reason they shoot Cavell and Fryatt goes deeper than just the technicality of the law - to them this was unspeakable behaviour, like a modern terrorist planting a bomb." Conan Doyle wrote: "Everybody must feel disgusted at the barbarous actions of the German soldiery in murdering this great and glorious specimen of womanhood." In a letter to Mr Fryatt's widow, King George V called his death an "outrage". Every means of communication - songs, postcards, posters, films and even stamps - were used to convey these examples of "the Hun" at work. Bodies exhumed Prof Badsey said: "A lot of the British propaganda work was aimed at the then-neutral United States. "Coming just months after the sinking of the [civilian cruise liner] Lusitania, Edith Cavell's death was an obvious opportunity." Miss Cavell's picture was shown at army recruitment appeals. Soldiers chalked Captain Fryatt's name on artillery shells.

Image copyright PA Image caption The crowds for both Miss Cavell's and Captain Fryatt's funerals brought parts of London and their home towns to a standstill Both were initially buried close to where they were shot but shortly after the war their bodies were exhumed and brought back to England. The same train carriage was used in both cases. Miss Cavell was given a funeral service in Westminster Abbey but, at the request of her family, she was laid to rest beside Norwich cathedral. Capt Fryatt's funeral was held at St Paul's cathedral but his body was also taken home and buried at All Saints' Church, Upper Dovercourt, Essex. He was celebrated in two main memorials but as well as the hospital, a road and a pub in Harwich also bear his name. Miss Cavell was given a nearly a dozen memorials, including one on the edge of Trafalgar Square. The nurses college in Brussels and a charity for retired nurses are both named after her.

Mr Miller added: "She spoke to a chaplain on the night before she died and when he said he would think of her as a heroine and a martyr, she waved the idea away and said 'Think of me simply as a nurse who tried to do her duty'." Edith Cavell: WWI Nurse, Hero, Martyr | Article | NursingCenter Edith Cavell: WWI Nurse, He... Edith Cavell: WWI Nurse, Hero, Martyr Fall 2003, Volume :20 Number 4 , page 38 - 40 [Free] Join NursingCenter to get uninterrupted access to this Article Authors Article Content Long ago people called a nurse the watcher. Watching. Watching to see that the sick do not slip away forever in their sleep. 1 Edith Cavell was a watcher. But World War I led this English-born nurse to become a member of an underground escape organization behind enemy lines. Her selfless sense of duty drove her to risk her life nursing and aiding Allied soldiers hiding from the Germans in war-torn Belgium. Cavell's patriotism and loyalty to Britain, as well as her sacrifice to humanity, has made her a significant heroine of World War I. Figure. No caption available.

Born on December 4, 1865, the oldest child of the Vicar of Swardeston and his wife, Edith was taught to help those less fortunate than herself and was often sent on errands of mercy in their village. Her father, a strict Victorian, abhorred lying and raised his children to have an unswerving respect for the truth. Cavell's compassion for others was apparent as she confided her dreams to her cousin, "Someday, somehow, I am going to do something useful. [horizontal ellipsis] I don't know what it will be, but it must be something for people. They are, most of them, so helpless, so hurt and so unhappy." 2 Cavell studied at home with her father until the age of eighteen, when she enrolled in Miss Gibson's School for Young Ladies in Peterborough. She discovered she had a gift for languages and learned to speak French fluently, earning praise as the teacher's best student. By graduation, Cavell had grown into a serious young woman with a frail build who scorned fun and mischief. In 1884, she accepted a position with a wealthy English family who needed a governess.

Although this was not an occupation to fulfill her dreams, she grew to love the children and remained with the family for six years. She spent another five years as a governess in Belgium. In 1895 she returned to England to care for her seriously ill father. After tending him for nearly a year, he gradually recovered. The experience provided Cavell with a calling in which she felt needed. She decided to become a nurse. The following year, at the age of thirty, she entered the London Hospital Nurses' Training School as a probationer. The next five years Cavell faced long hours of work and study, with little financial reward. She ministered to the old, the sick, the criminal and the poor in the dreary hospital and in the squalid London homes she visited on out-duty. In 1901, she completed the nursing course and took a position as night supervisor of a small hospital. She was quickly promoted and within three years was employed as assistant matron of a large hospital where she gained experience teaching and lecturing senior probationers. Cavell's meticulous work and supervisory skills soon elevated her to the top of her profession.

By 1906, she was matron at Ashton New Road District Home in Manchester, when she received an intriguing letter from a Belgian surgeon. New Beginnings The letter contained an offer to organize and direct a nurses' school in Brussels to educate and professionally train personnel as Florence Nightingale had in England. The surgeon, Antoine Depage, was frustrated with the religious orders that controlled Belgian nursing. He had available four brownstone houses and sought a matron to begin the training school. The nurse he sought must have administrative experience and teaching capabilities, understand Belgian people and be fluent in French. Nurse Cavell satisfied all the requirements. Cavell opened the school on October 1,1907, with four students. As director of the Berkendael Institute of Brussels, she demanded the highest standards from her pupil nurses. "Her discipline was strict but scrupulously fair. She stressed duty and service to others, as well as ethical conduct, cleanliness, dedication to work and punctuality." 3 As the months went by, the nursing staff grew, and by 1909, Cavell had twenty-three probationers and was supervising three other hospitals in Brussels, as well as the Institute.

She wrote many articles on nursing and sent periodical reports to the English Nursing Mirror. In 1912, she started her own nursing magazine, L'infirmiere. 4 By 1914, Edith Cavell had significantly improved the level of Belgian nursing by training scores of nurses, while superintending the care of hundreds of patients. Cavell was vacationing in England when Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, was assassinated. Fear and unrest spread across Europe and on July 28, 1914, Austria declared war on Serbia, triggering World War I. Although her family begged her to stay in England, Cavell insisted on returning to Belgium to ready the nurses for the flood of wounded. All were hard at work in the Institute in the suburbs of Brussels when the German army occupied the city less than a month after her return. Underground Relief As the war raged around them, the Belgian people began aiding Allied soldiers that had become separated from their units. Sympathetic nuns and villagers hid stragglers in woods, barns, deserted houses and shell holes, wherever they could escape the Germans.

The network provided fugitive troops with food, money, civilian clothes and a guide to the border into Holland. Over the months, Germans swarmed the countryside, forcing the resistance to recruit more accomplices to hide the refugees in the city. The underground work spread, and more links were added in the chain that led to escape for many Allied soldiers. One wet night in November 1914, three men came to the door of the Institute, now a Red Cross hospital, with a letter from Dr. Depage's wife. A member of the underground had been sent to Cavell, hoping she would help. He pleaded with Cavell to hide two English soldiers, one with a wounded leg and needing medical attention. Her sense of duty would not allow her to refuse aid to her countrymen. Cavell believed only God had the right to take a life away, and it was her sacred duty to preserve life-any life placed in her hands. 5 When Cavell agreed to harbor the English soldiers, she was accepted into the underground operation. In the following months, she helped hundreds of soldiers escape from behind the German lines and eventually rejoin their units.

Despite an order from the German authorities stating that anyone sheltering Allied troops be shot, Cavell's secret work continued. "With the growing number of escapees in her nursing home, it was harder and harder for Edith Cavell to make ends meet. It was difficult enough to get food under any circumstances; even water was rationed now, and the Germans were making life more difficult by the day." 6 Cavell did most of the chores involving the hidden soldiers herself so she did not incriminate other nurses, but eventually the German Secret Police grew suspicious of the activities at the Institute. As the resistance continued to funnel soldiers to the hospital, one arrived whom Cavell suspected was a spy. He was a handsome Frenchman who charmed the nurses. He stayed three weeks and absorbed information. Soon after, the Institute was placed under surveillance. Then one night the Secret Police came to search the hospital. Cavell remained calm. As she delayed the Germans, nurses sneaked the soldiers out the back door before they could be found. As rumors continued to circulate about Berkendael, the Germans were closing in on the resistance. Key members of the network were arrested, and incriminating letters were confiscated bearing Edith Cavell's name.

Cavell expected to be arrested, and although her colleagues urged her to escape, she refused. The Germans seized Cavell on August 5, 1915, and placed her in solitary confinement. During questioning, Cavell's trusting nature allowed the Germans to trick her into confessing by pretending they already had the necessary information. She remained in prison more than a month before she was tried, along with thirty-five other members of the network that had aided English, French and other Allied soldiers to escape. At her trial, Cavell couldn't lie to the judges. As a young child she had been taught lying was a sin, so she answered, yes, when asked if she had nursed and given money and food to Allied soldiers. Yes, she knew they were going to cross the border into Holland. Yes, she had helped over two hundred soldiers escape. And yes, she had done her duty in trying to save men who might otherwise have died. Martyr The judges could not believe this small, frail, middle-aged woman was not frightened. They resented her truthfulness, simple dignity and patriotic pride. Cavell and her conspirators were found guilty of high treason and were sentenced three days later.

Edith Cavell remained stoic as her death sentence was pronounced. Despite diplomatic efforts by neutral countries to obtain a reprieve, on October 12, 1915, Edith Cavell, wearing her nursing uniform, was shot at dawn by a firing squad at the national rifle range in Brussels. The night before her execution, Cavell had told her last visitor, an English chaplain, "Standing as I do, in view of God and eternity, I realize that patriotism is not enough; I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone." 7 She became an instant martyr, and her death aroused a worldwide storm of protest. Allied morale was strengthened, and recruitment doubled for eight weeks after her death was announced. 8 Until the end of the war, Cavell lay buried in Belgium near the place she was executed. In May 1919, her body was brought home to England with great ceremony, and she was reburied at the Cathedral of Norwich, a few miles from her hometown of Swardeston. Her memory is kept alive today in the Institut (French spelling) Medical Edith Cavell in Brussels, where she served as matron and helped improve nursing standards.

In Saint Martin's Place, near London's Trafalger Square, stands a tall statue of Edith Cavell in her nurse's cloak. Perhaps the best tribute to this heroic nurse is found in the words carved beneath her image: "Humanity, Fortitude, Devotion, Sacrifice"-a fitting description of this Christian watcher. NIGHTINGALE NURSING Following in Florence Nightingale's footsteps, Edith Cavell instituted the nursing reforms in Belgium that Nightingale had pioneered in England. Nightingale's military service during the Crimean War left her shocked by the lack of hygiene and elementary care that men in the British army received. Before her reforms, no one set out to be a nurse. Hospitals were so dirty and filled with disease that they attracted only the poorest women. These women stayed only until they had enough money to quit. Nightingale changed the face of nursing. The "Nightingale Training School for Nurses," established in 1860, provided the best technical training available. Probationers were given room, board, uniforms, laundry facilities and pocket money. They nursed real patients in the hospital ward and were educated in the medical sciences through lectures by the medical staff.

Those trainees who successfully completed the one-year training course were certified and registered as nurses. Successful candidates for Nightingale's school had to adhere to her Christian standards. Immoral behavior, including drunkenness and excessive flirting, was not tolerated. Upon completion of the course, the Florence Nightingale graduate was an educated, disciplined, morally sound nurse. Local hospitals snapped them up and medical professionals proclaimed the program "revolutionary." Florence Nightingale's radical nursing principles formed the basis for the training school. Published in 1 859, her book, Notes on Nursing: What It Is and What It Is Not, describes in detail her essential doctrines of caring for the sick. She believed, above all else, in hygiene (fresh air, cleanliness, clean water, proper drainage and plenty of light), constant consideration for the patient's feelings and shrewd observations at the sick bed. Nightingale's revisions laid the foundation of the modern nursing profession and established nursing as a respectable vocation for women, while greatly alleviating human suffering in the nineteenth century. 1 Iris Vinton, The Story of Edith Cavell (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1959), 70.

[Context Link] 2 Elizabeth Grey, Friend Within the Gates (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1961), 16. [Context Link] 3 Abraham linger, "Edith Cavell," British History (May 1997) accessed at . [Context Link] 4 Adele DeLeeuw, Edith Cavell (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1968), 28. [Context Link] 5 Grey, 120. [Context Link] 6 DeLeeuw, 54. [Context Link] 7 Vinton, 174. [Context Link]

Question: What was the occupation of Edith Cavell who was shot by the Germans in WWI?
Answer: Nurse